4/5 ★ – nintendufus's review of Mysteries Under Lake Ophelia.

I’m SUCH an easy mark for a game like this: Crunchy PS1 aesthetic (though more alike in actual design to an N64 game), abstract narrative, barebones speccing, no hints. And fishing! While this one adheres closer to standard structure than Bucher’s Fatum Betula, I feel that makes it even more dreadful (as in, full of dread). Whatever you’re expecting it to be, you’re probably only 60% right. I’m not even sure I expected what I got. But the feeling of discomfort, of uncertainty, of “was that a bug or is that just how this works” — that is really the stuff that makes shorter, simpler works like these so vital. And yet, I cannot heap uncritical praise: The grinding toward the end is a bit shit. I spent about the last 20% of my playtime (~1 hour) just catching fish so I could sell the fish and get a single beat-all fishing rod. It was the same system that controlled the basic flow of the game (get fish, get gear, fish deeper), but when the final stretch is up ahead, it’s not an enticing prospect. But you know what else fucking sucked? All the whitehead we caught that one fishing boat trip my grandpa took me and my twin brother on when we were like 11. “Not good eating,” he said (I don’t think I asked). But the water was lousy with ‘em. I got really seasick and we didn’t get enough edible fish for dinner, but I relished that trip. Even knowing we were gonna throw ‘em all back